D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[clearstream]

I think what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is asking is the order. Do you say hey I have a forest it's the Dark Forest of Wyrms... inside it are found Wyrm type X, type Y & type Z and then proceed to design the encounter table for that forest which will contain wyrm X, wyrm Y & wyrm Z? In this case the encounter table was impacted by worldbuilding.

Or do you say hey, I have a forest let me design an encounter table for it... I want some X's, some Y's and some Z's... (where X, Y, and Z they can be any monster). I'll call it the forest of X, Y and Z's... and the forest must have X, Y and Z in it since the encounter table says it does... In this instance the world was impacted by encounter design.

Personally I do my worldbuilding & encounter design like example 1. Which is why I maintain the encounters don't impact my world by my world impacts encounters... if you do it the second way I could see the argument that encounters impact worldbuilding... but then you should also be able to admit it doesn't have to be that way.

So you do your world-building in one pass? I don't do that. The two main cases are that I'm building a new world or I'm modifying an existing world. In the former case, one world was inspired by the characters who live in it (they came first), another was inspired by a map, another was inspired by a mechanical concept for currency. However, it is always a back and forth process. A whole empire might emerge from a rough draft of an encounter table. A mountain might arise because I want an extra march between two cities. When I'm modifying a world - such as Faerun - some maps and encounter tables will already exist. When the boxed set came out I chose Damara to work on. That continued with the hardback book. Then there was the - for me unusable - disruption of the events spanning 4e. And finally the world represented in published adventures and the SCAG, where I've shifted my attention to the Underdark. Think for instance, what the encounter tables around Blingdenstone tell us about the travails of that city!

I honestly find this idea of a single pass, step-by-step and then set in stone, world build thoroughly unfamiliar. Why don't you retain some flexibility? Well, whatever the reason, yes - I have no reason to doubt you if you tell me you approach your world building differently and I don't see why you would doubt me, so we are both forced to admit the existence of methods different from our own. Don't you agree? Have you considered keeping your world malleable i.e. using a non-linear ongoing process?

 

[Imaro]

You're skipping the part where you apply a fixed encounter pacing mechanic, so that all the encounters, no matter the X, Y, or Z, are now all tied directly to the level of the PCs.

Nope... that would be part of encounter design...

EDIT: And the pacing is for Adventuring Days... it is not a general world pacing, unless you choose to use it in that manner.

So you can have your preplanned Dark Forest of Wyrms, but the only Wyrms are those that come in deadly job lots for the current power level of the players -- and must change those job lots if the player power levels change.

Yes the job lots could change... though again if we are playing with the default settings of the game... I'm not sure why that would have to be the case or if the PC's become powerful enough where the Dark Forest of Wyrms is no longer a viable threat fiction-wise then they don't have adventuring days in the forest... Or I use manipulation of CR and # appearing adjustments to keep the lots deadly while still keeping the Dark Forest of Wyrms a deadly wyrm infested forest. But in each case I am manipulating the encounter rules to fit the world.

NOTE: This forest hasn't been defined enough for us to judge which method would be the one to use... thus numerous examples...

Now, the question is, did you build the Dark Forest of Wyrms so that it logically supports the power level of the players at any point, or did you alter how your world presents so the Dark Forest of Wyrms is only interesting in the band in which it matches the player power levels? If the former, there's some issues, because what you find in the forest at level 1 is vastly different from what you find at 15.

What... a forest of deadly wyrms? It doesn't seem to have changed much if I use this method, it's still a forest of deadly wyrms. In other words what fundamentally on a practical level about the world has changed?

If the latter, then you've intentionally built your world with zones of encounters so that you can support your fixed encounter pacing within it.

Not sure this makes any sense... are you saying in the worlds you build nothing is ever outpaced or left behind? That's part and parcel of default D&D... not sure how that qualifies as changing the world either? There's a point where an area isn't dangerous enough to present a challenge to PC's thus they would not have an adventuring day when traveling through said area. Seems like common sense to me.

Either way, you're building to suit your chosen encounter pacing.

What did I change about the world in these examples as opposed to the encounters that take place? You've yet to show me a place where I changed the world as opposed to the encounters...

 

[Imaro]

So you do your world-building in one pass? I don't do that. The two main cases are that I'm building a new world or I'm modifying an existing world. In the former case, one world was inspired by the characters who live in it (they came first), another was inspired by a map, another was inspired by a mechanical concept for currency. However, it is always a back and forth process. A whole empire might emerge from a rough draft of an encounter table. A mountain might arise because I want an extra march between two cities. When I'm modifying a world - such as Faerun - some maps and encounter tables will already exist. When the boxed set came out I chose Damara to work on. That continued with the hardback book. Then there was the - for me unusable - disruption of the events spanning 4e. And finally the world represented in published adventures and the SCAG, where I've shifted my attention to the Underdark. Think for instance, what the encounter tables around Blingdenstone tell us about the travails of that city!

That's all well and fine but you seem to be strengthening the position that it really is a choice on whether you let encounters impact the world or not. You are choosing to change things... right?

When we look at the encounter tables for published adventures we don't know whether the place (worldbuilding) or the encounters (encounter building) came first... we don't know whether one was changed to suit the other. The encounters could tell us something exactly because they were designed with the already built city as the basis... or vice versa,

I honestly find this idea of a single pass, step-by-step and then set in stone, world build thoroughly unfamiliar. Why don't you retain some flexibility? Well, whatever the reason, yes - I have no reason to doubt you if you tell me you approach your world building differently and I don't see why you would doubt me, so we are both forced to admit the existence of methods different from our own. Don't you agree? Have you considered keeping your world malleable i.e. using a non-linear ongoing process?

No one said they build their entire world in one pass... but it's quite possible to build the world as you go and only when an area is defined design the encounters for it or are you claiming that's not possible? Finally not once have I denied that other designe their worlds the way they do... I've been repeartedly told what I am claiming is possible is not. That's where this whole tangent of conversation was born from. That by necessity if you use say 3 deadly encounters a day as an adventure pacing mechanism you must in turn let said adventure pacing mechanism impact the entire world. I disagree.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't tie my encounter tables to the power of the party. My encounter tables describe something real about the world, not the players.

Um, okay? Then this doesn't apply to you? The discussion I've been having is about choosing a fixed encounter pacing mechanic, like 3 deadlies an adventuring day*, having an impact on worldbuilding. What did you want to talk about, since you've removed the crucial leg of that discussion?

*which is defined by player power levels.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nope... that would be part of encounter design...

And I said otherwise... where, again?

EDIT: And the pacing is for Adventuring Days... it is not a general world pacing, unless you choose to use it in that manner.

Which I said... where, again?

Yes the job lots could change... though again if we are playing with the default settings of the game... I'm not sure why that would have to be the case or if the PC's become powerful enough where the Dark Forest of Wyrms is no longer a viable threat fiction-wise then they don't have adventuring days in the forest... Or I use manipulation of CR and # appearing adjustments to keep the lots deadly while still keeping the Dark Forest of Wyrms a deadly wyrm infested forest. But in each case I am manipulating the encounter rules to fit the world.

NOTE: This forest hasn't been defined enough for us to judge which method would be the one to use... thus numerous examples...

How do the job lots and encounter #s change from 1st through 15th so that the encounters make sense from the world description, again? At 1st, they always run into small groups of weak Wyrms, but at 15th it's big groups of strong wyrms or small groups or singles of very strong wyrms (with wyrms defined however you like as a group of foes). What part of the story of the Dark Forest of Wyrms supports that no powerful wyrms can be found when the party is 1st level, and then no weak wyrms can be found when the party is at 15th level? Or the gradual transition that exists in-between?

What... a forest of deadly wyrms? It doesn't seem to have changed much if I use this method, it's still a forest of deadly wyrms. In other words what fundamentally on a practical level about the world has changed?

The deadliness of the wyrms? They're of small threat to villages when the party is 1st level, and threats to kingdoms at 15th level. Where are the kingdom level threats at 1st, and where are the village nuisance threats at 15th? The world is only presenting things dangerous to the PCs, and only within a narrow band defined by their level, and always in lots of 3 per adventuring day (which is one day by the default assumption, changing that is part of worldbuilding as well), and that's not well explained by the Dark Forest of Wyrms.

Not sure this makes any sense... are you saying in the worlds you build nothing is ever outpaced or left behind? That's part and parcel of default D&D... not sure how that qualifies as changing the world either? There's a point where an area isn't dangerous enough to present a challenge to PC's thus they would not have an adventuring day when traveling through said area. Seems like common sense to me.

Banding is part of worldbuilding -- THIS area is for when their 1-5, and will have threats for them but become safer as they level, and THIS area will be for 6-10....

You're planning your worldbuilding around your players, and how you plan that is influenced by your pacing mechanism. If you change pacing, you need to change some assumptions about what's where and what levels it addresses.

What did I change about the world in these examples as opposed to the encounters that take place? You've yet to show me a place where I changed the world as opposed to the encounters...

Are you saying that encounters reflect nothing about the world? Clearly not, given your ridiculous previous strawmen about rocs on the ocean floor. If your encounters are built entirely with the world in mind, how are they not reflections of that world? And, if at 1st level, all I meet in the Dark Forest of Wyrms are little wyrmlings in small packs, but at 15th all I meet are powerful wyrms that can devastate towns, then aren't those reflecting something about your world? Aren't they directly saying that the Dark Forest of Wyrms has gone from a place of wyrmlings to a place where threats to kingdoms exist? If it was always both, why does it only confront the players according to their ability -- why do the wyrmlings so successfully hide from the 15th level party and the powerful wyrms hide from the 1st level party?

 

[clearstream]

Um, okay? Then this doesn't apply to you? The discussion I've been having is about choosing a fixed encounter pacing mechanic, like 3 deadlies an adventuring day*, having an impact on worldbuilding. What did you want to talk about, since you've removed the crucial leg of that discussion?

*which is defined by player power levels.

Tier-4 characters have more important things to do than hunt kobolds in Kobold Copse. Coming back to the number of rests per adventuring day, although that definitely interacts with the difficulty of encounters, it also interacts with a great deal else in the world. Say my pacing is Gritty Realism? Then spells like Raise Dead are far less available. Clerics become less able to mitigate famine using Create Food and Water. Magic becomes a more precious resource.

 

[clearstream]

That's all well and fine but you seem to be strengthening the position that it really is a choice on whether you let encounters impact the world or not. You are choosing to change things... right?

For the sake of argument, say I assert that you must let encounters impact the world. Is that going to stop you making your own choice about it?

No one said they build their entire world in one pass... but it's quite possible to build the world as you go and only when an area is defined design the encounters for it or are you claiming that's not possible? Finally not once have I denied that other designed their worlds the way they do... I've been repeartedly told what I am claiming is possible is not. That's where this whole tangent of conversation was born from. That by necessity if you use say 3 deadly encounters a day as an adventure pacing mechanism you must in turn let said adventure pacing mechanism impact the entire world. I disagree.

Hmm... I think your encounters tell your players something about the part of the world they are travelling through. I believe the scaling between your adventuring day and your calendar day(s) will also impact the world. Whether that matters depends a lot on the DM. For instance, if there are no famines and no clerical orders inclined to try to mitigate famine with Create Food and Water, it hardly matters (with regard to that one event type) whether they refresh their spells weekly or daily. Perhaps I would go so far as to say that a world that works that way (where there are famines, and there are clerics who try to mitigate them) seems kind of richer to me, but if a DM said they run with a tight focus on dungeon-crawling and don't get distracted by world-narratives then I can appreciate that such factors may have low or no impact for them.

And so far as I can tell, that is a key point of divergence. It sounds to me like some people like a tightly player-centric campaign, while others enjoy more a living world. Even in the latter case, some people appear to prefer envisioning their PCs as thoroughly exceptional heroes, while others prefer envisioning that the realm may contain other heroes... or even that the PCs are not so heroic after all. I envision my party as a force for good, but not a flawless one and perhaps not so exceptional unless they prove themselves to be that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I snipped this out because it's directly to the heart of my point. Here you explicitly confirm my original statement: choosing a pacing mechanism has impacts on worldbuilding. You've just decided to characterize it as universally positive. I made no comment whatsoever on the positive or negative nature of the impact, although I strongly disagree with your assertion that it's universally positive, just that an impact to worldbuilding is a knock on to choosing a fixed encounter pacing method. I've never claimed you cannot account for it in your worldbuilding, just that you have to.

Well, my example was about other random elements, but if applied to encounters and pacing, it holds up. But the problem I think we are having is that I've not said that such things CANNOT impact world-building, I've said that they may, but that it is a choice. You have been using words like NEED and MUST and that's what I've been arguing against. I think that altering the encounters from the normal 6 to 8 expectation to 3 deadly does not HAVE TO impact world-building. It may, but if it does, it's because the DM has chosen to allow it, whether good or bad.

I've also not said that all instances are universally positive; that was in regard to a specific instance where an odd random result served as inspiration for a world-building change. In that case, because the DM was inspired, it would be a positive element. But I by no means said, nor implied, that every instance of impact would be positive.

This is what's frustrated me so with my discussions with [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] -- he insists there are no changes needed to worldbuilding to accommodate a fixed encounter pacing and, so far, has pretty much managed to not prove that without assuming the world is already built so as to accommodate it.

I cannot say for certain, but I think this goes back to the word NEEDED. I also don't think anyone was talking about a fixed encounter pacing of "always X amount of Y encounters". What started this branch of the converation was mentioning that changing 6 to 8 encounters for 3 harder ones, but I don't think that means everyone is saying you must always have the 3 deadly encounters. Based on most of the comments, it would seem that people on both sides of the discussion are saying that varying things to match the expectations of the world, or to suit what you want at the table, to be the best approach.

So, I think that taking most of the comments into consideration, I think what's being argued is not that there MAY be impact to world-building, but that there MUST be.

Anything MAY impact the world-building that a DM decides to apply to the game. I mean, a tree could fall in my yard in real life, and that could impact the world-building of my game....maybe it gives me a scare that inspires me to do something similar to the PCs, maybe it gives me an idea for a forest that is under assault by some malignant fey ...but I would be using faulty logic to say "Real Life Flora always impact world-building".

 

[hawkeyefan]

Is the world "built" before it has encounters? For me, no. Maybe an important difference between our views is that you put encounter tables outside the magic circle delimiting "built", and I put them inside of that circle. What you are arguing then becomes for you tautologically true: world building excludes mechanics because mechanics are not part of your definition of "built".

Encounter tables are decidedly inside my definition of "built" and they go on to change what was "built". It's kind of a fascinating metaphysical structure, when you think about it. World building brings imagination and mechanics together, working back and forth between them. It is layered and open-ended.

I think this is a good example of how this all boils down to preference.

I generally don't use random encounter tables from the published materials I use, and I never create them for my own material. So for me, they are clearly not part of the world-building. I find that this is the best approach for me because my group and I generally find random encounters tedious (not all, but in high frequency they seem to get in the way of progress of our story). I also find that not having such tables means that my world-building is a bit more open....things aren't as written in stone which gives me some leeway when it comes to the types of encounters I do decide to use in a given area.

Again, it's a matter of preference, which is fine, but I think that's a lot of the reason for the disconnect many of us are having.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, my example was about other random elements, but if applied to encounters and pacing, it holds up. But the problem I think we are having is that I've not said that such things CANNOT impact world-building, I've said that they may, but that it is a choice. You have been using words like NEED and MUST and that's what I've been arguing against. I think that altering the encounters from the normal 6 to 8 expectation to 3 deadly does not HAVE TO impact world-building. It may, but if it does, it's because the DM has chosen to allow it, whether good or bad.

I've also not said that all instances are universally positive; that was in regard to a specific instance where an odd random result served as inspiration for a world-building change. In that case, because the DM was inspired, it would be a positive element. But I by no means said, nor implied, that every instance of impact would be positive.



I cannot say for certain, but I think this goes back to the word NEEDED. I also don't think anyone was talking about a fixed encounter pacing of "always X amount of Y encounters". What started this branch of the converation was mentioning that changing 6 to 8 encounters for 3 harder ones, but I don't think that means everyone is saying you must always have the 3 deadly encounters. Based on most of the comments, it would seem that people on both sides of the discussion are saying that varying things to match the expectations of the world, or to suit what you want at the table, to be the best approach.

So, I think that taking most of the comments into consideration, I think what's being argued is not that there MAY be impact to world-building, but that there MUST be.

Anything MAY impact the world-building that a DM decides to apply to the game. I mean, a tree could fall in my yard in real life, and that could impact the world-building of my game....maybe it gives me a scare that inspires me to do something similar to the PCs, maybe it gives me an idea for a forest that is under assault by some malignant fey ...but I would be using faulty logic to say "Real Life Flora always impact world-building".

I grant most people don't select a fixed encounter pacing mechanic, and that allows a great deal more flexibility -- in fact, I've said that from the start. But, if your pacing mechanic is such that it MUST tie directly to player level at all times, and in such as was as to generate only the most dangerous encounters for that player level, I cannot see how that doesn't impact worldbuilding -- either the world is built to accommodate this extreme stress on how it presents itself (and I hope we agree encounters are a presentation of the built world) or you have to adapt the world on the fly to accommodate the stress. Or ignore it, which is it's own kind of impact. If you want to keep presenting the built world, it must take into account HOW you're presenting it. And encounters are a how of that presentation. I cannot see how encounters can be both based on the world and not a reflection of it. If you're disturbing how you present encounters to match a dogmatic pacing paradigm, then you're distorting how you're reflecting your world. Either you build to correct that distortion, or you correct for it on the fly by changing the world.